


Broken Hearts and Empty Promises

by Ryuuto



Series: You're My Head, You're My Heart [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-22
Updated: 2014-04-22
Packaged: 2018-01-20 10:18:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1506929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ryuuto/pseuds/Ryuuto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nico di Angelo used to be pretty content with just having his daemon and his older sister in his life.  Percy Jackson was an unexpected factor in his life, and one he welcomed at first.  That took a nose-dive the moment Bianca joined the Hunters of Artemis and went off on a quest to find the goddess.  The promise he made Percy take was an impossible one to keep, but at the time it felt like a good idea.  Bianca would've been safe with one of them looking out for her.  She would've been.  Nico was sure of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken Hearts and Empty Promises

**Author's Note:**

> There are a lot of (lovely) friends of mine I have to blame for this taking off. At any rate, the first part of this series is going to be going through PJO canon. I want to explore this kind of setting before I really start working on it. There is a [primer](http://restcalm.dreamwidth.org/1416.html) for how the world is set up in accordance to daemons, as well as a brief blurb on what they are. Please note that this is subject to change as I think of anything else to add, modify, or take away.
> 
> Without further ado, on with the fic!

My name is Nico di Angelo, and my daemon’s name is Neron. I used to go to a military academy with my older sister, Bianca, and her grey jay daemon, Bayanai or Bay for short. Why did we stop attending? Let’s just say we never went back after the night of the school dance. By the way, I just want to say _gag me._ I’ve never known a school dance to be fun. At least, according to Bianca they weren’t fun, and I trusted my sister’s judgment on those sorts of things. This dance definitely proved Bianca right.

It didn’t help that neither of us had friends to make fun of everything and pass the time.

We had our daemons, of course, and I had my Mythomagic cards and figurines, though. That made up for it. Bianca and I had just gotten out of a debate on which god could kick the other’s butt. She wasn’t all that into Mythomagic, but I prattled about the Greco-Roman gods enough for her to be familiar enough to hold her own in a debate. Okay, I was obsessed, but who wouldn’t be? Greek myths were awesome, end of story, moving on.

The two of us were minding our own business. Seriously, we never caused trouble if we could help it. Mama would’ve scolded us if we weren’t on our best behavior in public. She’d always said that being polite and respectful helped get you places easier most of the time. The thing was that trouble tended to find us, no matter how much we didn’t want it to and how polite we were.

Anyway, Bianca and I were approached by Mr. Thorne, one of the teachers. I didn’t have the guy as my teacher, but Bianca had his class. Honestly, I was glad I didn’t have him as a teacher because he was way creepy to me. He never felt quite right. That night, Mr. Thorne looked both pleased, vicious, and threatening. Bianca’s hand shot out to my shoulder and squeezed it, sensing the hostility, too.

“I suggest you both come with me if you want to live,” he said. We were the only ones who could hear him, what with all the noise from the other students as they had a grand old time dancing to loud (and obnoxious) pop music. Neron became a hamster and cowered inside my pocket. Bay clutched at Bianca’s shoulder as the two of us stood up. We followed him, and I took my sister’s hand for reassurance.

This was so much more trouble than the crazy woman on the bus the two of us ran into.

\--*--

Later, after the craziness with the manticore and my sister meeting with the Goddess of the Hunt with Percy, Bianca told me about how she joined the Hunters of Artemis. It meant that I couldn’t come with her because guys weren’t allowed to join them or anything. She also wouldn’t age and all this other stuff that she was listing off, but I wasn’t really paying attention. I was still trying to get passed the fact that it meant I wouldn’t see my big sister again.

_Don’t be silly,_ Neron scolded in my head, _She’d still get to visit you on occasion. It will take a lot more than Artemis and manticores to keep Bianca away._

_Yeah, like herself?_ I shot back, maybe unkindly. To be honest, I wasn’t feeling very kind at that moment. My daemon fell silent and we turned our attention back to what she was saying.

“...And Artemis says I can visit you at Camp Half-Blood,” Bianca said, “So I won’t be gone forever.”

I gave a noncommittal grunt. I made it very clear that I wasn’t happy about it. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it was cool that she’d be getting to do all that neat stuff, like hunting monsters with people who were on equal ground with you. But I was going to miss her. A lot.

Bay tried to flutter over to Neron. He shifted into a mouse shape and scurried inside my pocket, obviously not happy with the development, either. Bay went back to perch on my sister’s shoulder. He looked hurt. After a moment of silence, they sighed.

“You’ll have fun at the camp, Nico. Percy has been trustworthy so far,” Bay said. It was always a surprise when he talked to me. He was a very quiet daemon, even by normal standards. Still, I have to admit that if he talked to any human, it was most likely going to be me. Bianca and I have never heard him speak to anyone who wasn’t the two of us.

“I guess,” I said after a moment. I guess I sounded surly and hurt, but they took the response with some relief. The only comfort I had was that the Hunters weren’t leaving soon, so I could at least pretend for a little while that Bianca wasn’t leaving. She’d just be hanging out with the other Hunters instead of me. That was okay, sort of. I mean, I was happy Bianca was going to have some new friends, but neither of us really had anybody except each other. So, maybe I was jealous, but not even Neron needed to scold me for feeling that way. I could scold myself just fine.

The two of us rejoined the others right when Apollo’s Ferrari came down. It was so cool! I completely forgot about feeling sorry for myself in the excitement at seeing not only another god, but what Apollo’s chariot looked like now that we were in modern times. Even Neron came out of my pocket to take a look. He sat next to me in some kind of domestic cat shape. Maine coon, maybe? It was certainly big and fluffy enough to be one.

Anyway, the car totally changed into a bus when he realized that it couldn’t fit all of us. I sat up front with Percy, Thalia, Grover, and Apollo. The Hunters went to the back, along with Bianca. I tried not to think about that too much. I just focused on the fact that we were taking a ride in _Apollo’s chariot._ Being a demigod was awesome! Dangerous, but totally awesome. I could feel that Neron was in definite agreement with me.

I think Neron went off to talk to Bronwyn, Percy’s North American river otter daemon. Hey, being ADHD wasn’t the problem this time. It was the fact that Apollo had Thalia be the driver, since she was almost sixteen or something. Lame. Really lame. Older kids always get to do the fun stuff.

At least, that was what I thought, until we almost crashed into the earth. That was about when Neron leapt into my lap in pomeranian shape. Look, those dogs are poofy as all get out, but gripping them is the easiest thing in the world. I held onto him tight with one arm while the other gripped my seat to avoid being launched into orbit. I glanced over at the other two. Grover looked like he was about to be sick as he clutched the bottom of his seat tightly. Bronwyn was hanging on to the rails that bolted Percy’s seat to the floor of the bus, while Percy did the same thing Grover was doing, sans the sick expression. If anything, he looked grim and determined and ready for anything.

Okay, Neron, fine, maybe he looked a little scared. Are you happy, now?

I felt more sorry for Thalia after we crash landed into Camp Half-Blood. She looked beyond terrified. Yeah, it was ironic that a daughter of the mighty Zeus had a phobia of heights, but it was more...I dunno, I just couldn’t bring myself to think any of that was funny. Thalia was tough, though. Her face was still abnormally pale, but she was trying to shake off the fear now that we were on the ground.

I don’t think Apollo will be doing that again anytime soon.

\--*--

It was a week after Bianca went out on the quest and Percy followed after them. During that week, I had learned a lot from the Hermes kids, which was to never let your guard down around them. They would steal anything from you if you left it out long enough, and sometimes even if you hid it. One of the Hermes kids tried to steal my Mythomagic cards, and Neron scared them silly by going into lion shape and roaring loudly. He told me that nobody went near them after that.

I was also getting the sense that Neron was getting ready to settle. He wasn’t taking as many shapes as he normally did. He liked exploring all the different animal shapes that we could think of, and sometimes we even went to the library to find more animals he might want to try turning into. Because of that, Neron typically didn’t stay in one form for more than maybe ten minutes. Now, it was taking an hour before he switched shapes. The two of us were excited. We’d always wondered what shape it would be that he’d settle in. Maybe a part of me hoped it would be a grey jay like Bayanai, or an otter like Bronwyn, but I’d be happy with whatever shape Neron took. A lion would totally be awesome, but I could settle for a mouse since I’d know he’d be safe in my pocket when danger was around.

Still, I couldn’t really relax that day. I’d been having horrible nightmares for the past couple of days. All of them involved Bianca dying. I discounted them, sure that Percy would keep his promise to me. He was a hero, a real live hero. He couldn’t possibly fail. Heroes always kept their promises and saved the day. Always….

It wasn’t hard to miss that Percy and the others had come back. I immediately started going around camp to see if Bianca was staying or if she’d already left with the Hunters. Neron took some sort of bird shape to help me search. I didn’t see what it was, though. Eventually, I went to the Big House, since that was where Percy should be. I walked inside, and I could feel the tension in the room. Something tingled in the back of my head, like a warning or something, but I pushed on and tried for a smile.

“Hey! Where’s my sister?”

The silence that followed made my ears ring, and that tingling got stronger the longer it lasted. Neron flew back in to land on my shoulder, cuddling up to my head to try to comfort me. I didn’t notice, my focus all on Percy and Chiron.

Percy stood up.

“Let’s take a walk, okay? We need to talk.”

For the record, Percy totally failed at giving me any sense that the news was going to be good.

We walked to the dining pavillion, and he told me how Bianca died. He gave me this figurine that I’d always wanted, the one I could never get my hands on. A figurine of Hades. I felt numb at first. After all, Percy had just confirmed what I already felt. The nightmares, the feeling that Bianca’s soul was being judged...all of it.

I felt tears prick my eyes, and that snapped me out of the numb feeling. I refused to cry in front of Percy Jackson. I refused to show weakness like that. I hadn’t looked at Neron at all during the conversation, but I felt him press up against my face and heard him give a fierce hiss when Percy reached out to me. Bronwyn kept looking at us with sad brown eyes.

I wanted to hate him so much. I was angry, I was hurt, and yet...yet...I couldn’t….

The ground erupted at that point. Skeletal warriors appeared, converging on Percy. My anger and now fear mixed, and I screamed for everything to go away. I felt the earth respond to my emotions, and it opened up into a fissure. The warriors fell into the earth, eaten by hellish flames, and then the earth closed up. A scar was the only reminder of what had just happened.

I felt fear starting to bubble inside me at what I had just done. I shoved it down with anger. I couldn’t afford to feel fear right now.

“I hate you! I wish you were dead!”

I wish I actually meant those words, but I knew I didn’t. I didn’t want him dead. I just hated him for making me feel like...like I still _liked_ him. He broke his promise, let Bianca die, and I _still liked him._

It was too much. My heart was telling me things that I just couldn’t think about or comprehend. So I ran. Neron flew off my shoulder, something that I only felt rather than heard, and I finally saw what he’d settled into.

A barn owl.

I wanted to scream.


End file.
